Another New #1

Early last week, my friend Todd popped up with the idea of doing a run to Virginia over the first weekend of April to hit a couple of parks. The idea sounded wonderful and all, but due to my financial state, it just wasn’t feasible for me to tag along. Fortunately, he decided that having me along and not contributing was a better end-result than doing the trip all alone, so at 6:30pm on Thursday we were off on the 12 hour drive to Doswell, VA.

Driving straight through the night while switching off on driving duties, we arrived at the front gate of Kings Dominion at about 6:15am and promptly found a truck stop to take a quick nap at. After about 1.5hr of sleep, we headed to a local hotel and used their lobby bathroom as our personal preparing quarters for the morning. Changing in a bathroom, and ultimately, brushing our teeth with folks washing their hands was quite the interesting experience, to say the least.

Kings Dominion is a park I had never been to before, and this was as good a time as ever to make my first visit. This weekend they debuted a 305ft tall Intamin Giga coaster named Intimidator 305, only the second of its kind in the world; the other being Millennium Force at Cedar Point. While waiting for Todd to get his pass processed, I explored outside of the park, taking many pictures of their B&M floorless coaster, Dominator.

Once done with processing, we got in line for park entry around 9:15am and by 10am the staff began letting the crowd in. We followed others to the Platinum Passholders gate where we waited for early entry into the park, and at 10:20 the fast-walking to Intimidator 305 was on. With burning, cramping calves and shins, we finally made it to the back of the park and were among the first in line on this day. After a short 15-20 minute wait, we were seated in row 2 of this monster for our first ride.

I’m not kidding when I call it a monster, either.

From our first ride, we both knew this was a whole different animal than anything else in the country. The lift is incredibly fast and took us both by surprise with how much quicker it was than Millennium Force. The first drop is absolutely insane, and even in the front you get tossed over it without much thought. From there it’s a 300ft plummet where at the base, you’re thrown into a near 90-degree banked right turn right on the ground. The forces in this turn are just incredible, and while I didn’t black/grey out, there were many, many people who said they did.

You quickly exit the turn into a huge hill that goes directly underneath the lifthill, where you get sustained ejector air throughout the whole element, before diving back down to the ground and taking a hard left turn. From here on out, the rest of the ride is nothing but absolutely ludicrous low-to-the-ground turns, hills and stupid transitions. There are two airtime hills thrown in, which are broken up a little by a trim brake that is very much needed. The speed this ride takes every turn and hill is mind-blowing, and I would not be surprised at all to see it get tamed a bit, and in the not-so-distant future. There are going to be a lot of folks who cannot handle this coaster.

We spent enough time at this park in the morning to ride their old looping coaster Anaconda once, and then we bolted for the hour drive south to Busch Gardens Williamsburg due to the HUGE waits for everything.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg has long been the #1 park on my To-Do list. I’ve always been fascinated with this park, and their seemingly incredible coaster collection. It’s been voted the “Most Beautiful Park In the World” for many years, and I just couldn’t wait to finally check it out for myself. Suffice to say, when Todd suggested we go there, I was doing back flips.

Aside from the horrible Virginia traffic, we made it to the park without a hitch and discovered an overflowing parking lot. Uh oh. We inquired about the cost of Quick Queue, but decided to just survey the crowds before making a decision. That decision saved us about $50 as, even though the park itself was so crowded, the coaster waits were actually very minimal. It should also be noted that the staff at this park did an absolutely fantastic job at running their rides. Each coaster was running three trains, and they were pumping them out at an unreal pace.

Our first coaster of the day was Apollo’s Chariot, which provided a surprisingly great ride. I was worried that it would be a big disappointment considering we had just ridden Intimidator 305 just an hour or so earlier. The setting is awesome, and it’s got some great surprise pops of air throughout the course. Before hitting our next coaster, we made a stop at The Curse of Darkastle for a ride on this Spiderman-like simulator, and I’ve gotta say that Busch did an amazing job on this ride. The theming was top-notch, and only suffered a bit in the story, but it was a great, great ride!

Next up for us was Todd’s love, Alpengeist, another coaster I just couldn’t wait to ride. Alpengeist is an inverted coaster themed to a ski-lift run a muck, and has a gorgeous setting in the woods, and down to the Rhine River. The ride proved to be very, very good, and was pretty much everything I was expecting. Griffon was up next, and is basically a Sheikra clone, but with a few differences, and 10-wide, floorless seating. And it also proved to be FAR superior to Sheikra! If I had one regret this day, it was that we only rode Griffon one time. I’ve always enjoyed Sheikra, but it’s never been “THAT” good to me; Griffon definitely was!

Finishing up our coaster run was Loch Ness Monster, which was a very fun ride. Obviously, not on par with the B&Ms in the park, but for what it was, and how its aged, the coaster was actually very enjoyable. The rest of our day here was spent wandering around, checking out the Festhaus, and re-rides on Alpengeist and Apollo’s Chariot. In the end, we managed about 4 hours or so at Busch Gardens, and I’m soooo happy that we decided to go here.

We left Busch in time to make it back to Kings Dominion to get back in line for Intimidator 305 in hopes of a night ride. And a night ride we got.

After about an hour of downtime, uncertainty of whether the coaster would even reopen this night, and about half of the people in line leaving to go ride others attractions, we only had about a 20 minute wait once it started running again. During the time it was down, we debated leaving the line and trying to ride Volcano, but our decision to wait it out ended up being one of the best decisions EVER.

The ride we got in the pitch dark, back seat, was one of the most unbelievable rides I’ve ever experienced on any coaster. It rivaled even the most insane, out-of-control night rides I’ve had on Voyage at Holiday World. There are literally no lights on the entire course, and in the back row, that first drop just feels like it’s never going to end.

Ever.

The rest of the ride, frankly, was an absolute blur, and it left both of us shaking for at least 45 minutes after we had left the park. I had no expectations for this ride, and this night ride completely shattered any doubts I might have had about it being my new favorite steel coaster.

That night was spent…Sleeping. After being up for about 35 of the previous 36 hours, we found a hotel about 2 exits from Kings Dominion, had dinner, and passed out immediately. The following day was to be another extremely long one, and we both needed sleep bad.

First thing in the morning, we headed back to Kings Dominion and got a quick back-row ride on their floorless coaster, Dominator. It was the most unique B&M looper I had been on so far, and it was a lot of fun for me, although Todd said he got beat to death on it. Next up was Volcano, which we caught right before opening. Unfortunately, Kings Dominion’s “stellar” operations took hold again, as this coaster went down for over an hour after the first guest train of the day. Once it was back up, they decided to only run it with one train, which was most frustrating. The ride itself was really fun, but I think my experience was a bit hindered thanks to their horrible operations.

The last two hours of our day at Kings Dominion were spent riding Intimidator 305 four more times, and just hanging around taking pictures. Once again, this ride owned us and frankly, I don’t think I could power ride it if there were no wait. Maybe I’m just getting old?

We headed out of Kings Dominion and hit the road for our five hour drive to Charlotte where we decided to make a two hour stop at Carowinds so Todd could ride their Intimidator. Unfortunately, my amazing memories of this coaster didn’t last long, and I’m gonna fully blame it on Intimidator 305. After riding that coaster hours earlier, and going 96mph, this hypercoaster just didn’t seem quite as exciting. It didn’t help that they had the trims on, which severely limited the experience. It was really sad, and very disappointing, that this ride, which was my #1 steel coaster just a week before, is out of my top 5 already.

After grabbing a quick ride on Afterburn, we spent the remainder of the night riding the Flyers, and had a blast doing so. It was a great end to a great trip! Unfortunately, we still had a supposed eight hour drive back to Florida, which was delayed about 3hr at the Florida Welcome Center due to me accidentally draining Todd’s car battery.

All in all, it was an amazing trip, and I’m so glad that I got to join. We’re already plotting our return to 305, because frankly, any length of waiting to return is far too long.